BusinessWeek’s Cliff Edwards reports on California’s plan to regulate the sale of televisions that are not energy-efficient, leaving consumer electronic companies and retailers up in arms. “As early as Nov. 4, the state is expected to set new guidelines that would require retailers by 2011 to sell only sets that consume about a third less power than they do today,” writes Edwards. “Manufacturers and retailers say the new rules could force them to pull large-screen plasma TVs and many other models off store shelves.”

Smeal’s Dan Guide weighs in on the issue and how this impacts consumers:

California’s proposed rules mandating power consumption from TVs are an excellent example of good legislative intentions with bad outcomes for consumers. The bad outcomes are most likely to be increased prices for TVs and reduced choices for consumers in California. Is the real problem that energy prices are too low? If consumers are indifferent to an increase in their energy consumption then there is a strong possibility that sufficiently raising electricity rates will decrease consumption, but at a high societal cost (e.g., older people on fixed incomes unable to afford air conditioning and dying from heat stroke). Consider the impact of $4 or $5 a gallon gasoline prices on fuel-inefficient SUV sales as a recent case in point. Should refrigerators that consume ‘too much’ energy be banned? It seems a no-brainer for those of us with plenty of money, but energy efficiency comes at a price (a more expensive price tag) and we (hopefully) recover our investment in a reasonable period of time. However, if you are worried about paying for the food every week, then buying a more expensive, but energy efficient, refrigerator may be out the question.

The U.S. EPA’s Energy Star Program already rates TVs on power consumption and makes this information easily available via their website. This option allows consumers to vote with their wallets and if consumers don’t buy energy inefficient TVs, then manufacturers will stop selling them. The California commission claims that 38 million Californians would ‘double TV energy consumption’ by 2020. This claim assumes that manufacturers will do nothing to reduce the energy consumption of their future offerings. This isn’t likely since manufacturers have already made marked improvements in plasma TV energy consumption. It seems odd to single out a single luxury item for this type of legislation. What about flat panel monitors for computers?

A related question (that hasn’t been asked) is where the most energy is consumed during the product life cycle. For example, mobile phones and laptop computers sip energy during the use phase, but require enormous amounts of energy during the production phase. To make the problem worse, both of these products have very short life cycles before they are discarded in favor of the newest model (80 percent of Americans replace their mobile phone within a 12 month period). Recycling of both these products is problematic since there are so many mixed materials present. This is a much more difficult problem to address, but with a higher potential payout.